Holding Hands
by L.V. Scott
Summary: Alex tells the story of how the life of the three Russo kids changed after the family business went broke and their struggle to have a normal life again. AU: No magic. Rated T for family violence and swearing.
1. Chapter 1

My name is Alex Russo, I'm 20 years old and I live with my older brother, Justin and my younger brother, Max. We live in a small apartment, is all we have right now, but we don't complain. We have each other and that's the most important thing right now. It didn't used to be like this, we didn't get along, especially Justin and I, but things have changed. The past years have been really hard, but we managed to move on, and all thanks to my brother Justin. He sacrificed a lot just to take care of Max and me, even though he didn't have to and for that, I'm fully thankful, though I think I haven't told him yet.

We used to be a regular family in New York. We lived in Waverly Place. My dad, Jerry, owned a sub sandwich restaurant, it was called "Waverly Sub Station", the idea was original, but you learn to hate it when you spent many unpleasant moments in one place. My dad opened the restaurant a long way back when he was single. He then met my mom somewhere in Central America; they got married and moved upstairs, to the Loft. My mom, Theresa, used to help him around, you could see she barely liked the restaurant, but she kept helping anyways. They were good parents, the one who embarrass you most of the time in front of your friends, but I guess every kid at 14 feels embarrassed of their parents. Yes, I was 14 at the moment, I was a freshman and was popular on high school, but quite a rebel and very lazy, many teachers hated me, well I don't know if they "hated" me, but I was definitely a headache to them.

My brother Justin was all the opposite, on his sophomore year, he was a bright student, you could say the best of his class, probably of the whole school, he had always been smart and I was always teasing him, I thought he had no life and no friends, because he was a dork. He used to collect dolls; he called them "action figures", still dolls to me, such a nerd. We used to argue all the time, but it was mainly my fault, I was a headache to everyone around me, well except to our parents or at least they hid it well.

Our youngest brother Max; was 11, still in 6th grade, he was an average student, he was talkative, hyper and he could be really random and awkward most of the time. I used to make fun of him and he wouldn't understand, he would change an insult to a compliment; he didn't care about what the world thought about him, he was just Max, always smiling and making jokes, bad jokes, but they always made me give a little smile.

We all had to help in the Sub Station in our free time, but I didn't really enjoy it. I would usually sit around most of the time and managed to make Justin and Max do my chores without them even noticing I was manipulating them. I always got away with it. While they were working I was chatting with my best friend Harper, we've been friends since we were 5, she has always been a good friend and besides my brothers, she has always been there for me.

We had a good life, many good memories from that time, they were probably the last good times we had in a long time. But things changed at the Russo's household, I still don't understand how or why it happened, but I do remember how it all started.

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**A/N:** **Hey ****everyone. I finally decided to write this story, it's my first story ever, so I'd appreciate if you please review. Forgive me if there are some grammar mistakes, english is not my main language.**

**This story is told by Alex, but there'll be some parts in some chapters where Alex wasn't present when they happened, nevertheless she was told about them later. **

**I do hope you like the story. **


	2. Chapter 2

_That day, Justin and I arrived from school, we were arguing as usual..._

"I can't believe you did that, Alex! That tops everything you have ever done" said Justin, very annoyed.

"Oh please, don't you know the meaning of fun? Chill out Justin!" I replied.

"Fun?... Chill out?" Justin started to lose his patience, "you hid my school project and I almost failed, when are you going to grow up? Justin snapped back.

"Says the old man! Come on! I gave it back on time" I tried to defend myself, but I still thought that was a good prank.

Justin was about to answer when our mom's voice cut us out in a very polite -unusual when we're fighting- tone. "Guys, could you please keep it quite?"

Our parents were sitting at the kitchen table, with lots of papers, dad had a very concerned look, and he didn't look at us at any moment. He was focused like he was trying to solve a very hard math problem. My mom stood next to him, resting her hand in his back, with the same worried look, but was paying attention to us.

"Mom, you won't believe what Alex did today", Justin started as he left his things in the sofa, walking faster to tell on me to mom.

"Mom, don't believe him! He's just overreacting as always", I yelled back, walking towards mom to defend myself.

All of the sudden, our dad snapped, "You're mom said to be QUITE!"

He sounded really angry; I have never heard him use that voice. Justin and I stood still, in silence, a bit shocked; mom was starting to get nervous, moving her hands down in the "calm down" sign.

Justin's voice broke the silence, "Mom, what's going on?". Before mom could reply, dad told us to go to our rooms, still not looking at us. We didn't move, Justin insisted with a worried look, "Mom...?"

Dad looked at us, fury in his eyes, "I said, go to your room NOW!"

He yelled so hard, mom, Justin and I gave a little step back from him, scared. We froze for a second; it was mom who took us out of that moment, by quietly telling us to go. We grabbed our things and started climbing up the stairs as we listen to our parent's conversation:

"Theresa, I'm telling you… the money won't last that long", dad said in a concerned but angry way.

"Jerry, just calm down and let's check the list again, there must be some wrong number", mom tried to calm him down.

"NO Theresa, I'm telling you, it won't last!"

Dad slapped the table so hard that my mom backed away a little, she was scared. Justin and I stood at the middle of the stairs, looking at them. Dad noticed and he yelled at us, "GO TO YOUR ROOM, NOW!"

We didn't doubt and run upstairs. I tried to think about what just had happened; all the bills, dad's reaction. I've never saw him like that. I knew things had been going slow on the Sub Station, not many people came as they used to do, but I never thought it was this bad. It was too much to think about alone, so I went into Justin's room, even though we didn't get along most of the time, I sometimes look for him for support.

"Justin, are things really that bad?" I asked as I sat in his bed. Justin was getting ready to start his homework. He let a sigh out, "I don't know Alex, but it looks much worse than I thought", he said as he opened his book, looking for his assignment.

"It has to be, for dad to act like that, I can't remember him acting like that before" I said as I played with one of the pillows.

Justin sighed again and closed his book and put it on his desk, his hand was resting on the book. "I know" he said in a low voice, "but I'm sure he's just having a bad day" he added, forcing a smile.

I'm sure he was telling me this so I didn't worry; he used to do that a lot.

We stayed in silence for some minutes, Justin got back to his homework when we heard screams from downstairs…

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Max arrived a few moments later, mom and dad were still trying to make the numbers fit. Everyday Max arrived from school and watched this show he really liked, so not having a previous warning of dad's mood, he proceeded as usual; he threw his things in the floor and sat on the sofa and turned on the TV. Dad yelled at Max to turn off the TV, but he insisted on watching his show, as he always did. It happened too fast, dad rose from the chair and grabbed Max really hard from his arm almost carrying him from the couch.

"I told you to turn off the TV!" dad yelled at Max

"Dad, you're hurting me", Max said trying to free himself from dad's grip.

Justin and I run to the stairs to see what was going on. As we reached the living room, we saw dad dragging Max by the arm; he was scared and trying to let go of dad, but dad was much stronger than him.

I saw mom standing near the kitchen table; she didn't move nor did anything to stop dad. I look at her, wondering why haven't she hasn't done anything yet, I guess she was scared, few weeks later I confirmed this. To this day, I still don't understand why she didn't protect us.

"When I tell you to do something, you do it! Do you understand you little fuck?" Dad yelled at Max throwing him hard where the stairs were, Justin reacted fast enough to grab Max, preventing him from hitting himself.

We all stood there, scared; Max holding his hurt arm and with his free hand holding onto Justin's T-shirt, fear in his eyes. Justin had his arm around him in a protective way; I stood in the stairs, my hand resting on Justin's shoulder. We all looked at dad, I was confused, Max was scared and Justin had a defiant look, a look I've never seen; it would've seem that he was ready to fight dad if he ever got near us. Dad was looking back at us, like he hated us.

"Jerry, please" Mom, finally said, her voice trembling, trying not to cry, still standing in the same place,

Dad turned away to look at mom, we all looked at her, we were waiting for dad's next reaction, he laughed nervously and look back at us.

"What are you three doing down here? Go to your room, now" he yelled.

We didn't hesitate and we headed upstairs, to Justin room. There Max told us how it all began; he was shaking and had tears in his eyes. I didn't recall ever seeing Max like that; he had always been a cheerful kid, even when he hurt himself playing.

Justin hugged him trying to calm him down. I was confused, scared and shocked to say something. I saw Max's arm, he had dad's fingers printed in bright red. I sat beside them and hugged my brothers.

We heard some more fighting downstairs, mostly dad screaming. Finally, we heard a door slammed downstairs and then silence. One of them had left the house, we didn't know who, and we didn't want to know.

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_**What do guys think? ****Please, read and review.**_


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, breakfast went in complete silence, I know I didn't dare to say anything; Justin and Max were looking down to their own food, eating. Dad was reading the paper.

"Hurry up kids, you don't want to be late for school" mom broke the silence.

I could see mom had the same red fingers in the side of her face as Max had in his arm, though she tried to cover it down with makeup, still if you look long enough, you could see the marks. I guess dad must have hit her at some point last night.

We grabbed our things and left. "Justin, did you notice…" I wanted to ask him about mom, but he must have known and before I could finish my question, he said, "Yeah, let's just go to school" without looking at me and kept walking in silence.

School went boring as usual. During first period I got lost in my thoughts during class, I was trying to process whatever happened the day before and if dad was having a bad day. All I knew is he had never, ever put a finger on us or mom. I was thinking about my parents' conversation, about the money, did they really have so many debts? Were we really broke? There had to be something else, being just short of money wouldn't explain dad's behavior; actually, nothing could explain dad's behavior, it was just wrong, whatever the problem was.

As the day went by, everything went as normal, I had some trouble with a few teachers, they were tired of my low performance and lack of interest in school, I was a "lost case" to most of them. Justin hanged out with some of his geek friends, though I liked one of them, Zeke; he was funny for a nerd. Harper had a crush on him, I kept telling her to tell him something, but she wouldn't dare and I promised her I wouldn't meddle in.

As we were waiting to go home, Max arrived, annoyed that his teacher didn't like his Mars Project and he had to do it all over again for next week.

"She is so obsessed with this Mars thing. Well, if she loves Mars so much, why doesn't she marry it?" He was his usual self.

Justin gave him a speech about trying harder on school work, I just rolled my eyes.

"You could take my advice too, you know Alex" I looked back at him, he continued "Just so you know I got an A on the project I almost failed because of you"

"Why, what did you do?" Max asked me.

"I hid his project until the last due minute" I said proudly.

"It wasn't funny" Justin replied annoyed.

"You hid his project?" asked Max almost excited

"Yeah, you would've seen his face" I replied trying my best to imitate Justin's face.

Max and I started laughing.

"You all laugh, but at least I'm getting into college, what are you, lazy bums, are going to do for life, huh?" Justin tried to defend himself.

Max and I just kept making fun of him, laughing our way home.

When we got home, we heard our parents through the door.

"They're fighting again", said Max with a gloomy voice, the happy expression he had a minutes ago vanished.

All the laughing disappeared. We could heard them arguing through the door about the money and the Sub Station, dad sounded as angry as he did yesterday. We stood outside; all the memories from yesterday came back.

"Should we get in?" I asked looking at Justin. I was trying to figure out what he was thinking; he had a neutral expression in his face, no fear, no worry, no sadness in his eyes. He looked back at me, then at Max. Justin sighted and grabbed the doorknob for a few seconds, we were going in. But he didn't turn the doorknob, his hand lay there. Max grabbed Justin by the arm; a scared looked in his eyes. The yelling continued from the inside of our house.

Justin took his hand away from the door, "I want an ice cream, anyone want one? My treat!" Justin said vaguely cheerful, he was trying to break the tension; acting like nothing wrong was going on. Max's expression changed again, he had always loved ice cream and now he was excited, he was easily distracted. Justin and he started climbing down the stairs, I stood in the hall, perplexed. "You coming?" Justin asked in a calm voice, looking back at me. I heard dad's yelling, I didn't want to come in. "Sure" I replied.

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An hour later, we got home and didn't hear our parents anymore, we got in. Mom was making dinner and dad was sitting very impatient in the sofa, tapping his hand on the arm rest. "Where the hell were you?" he asked, slightly mad. "We went for an ice cream" Justin said calmly. We kept walking, heading to our rooms. Dad continued, "And WHO told you could go grab an ice cream and came home late?", dad was starting to lose it again, he stood up getting near us. Justin stood still, not in fear, but daring dad, Max and I were standing next to Justin and he pulled us behind him. Mom was oblivious to what was going on, she ignored us. Justin kept his calm voice but I think he went too far "I didn't know we weren't allowed to have an ice cream". He was defying dad. This definitely made dad lose his patience and grabbed Justin by the collar, fiercely. "You're being very insolent!" dad hissed angrily right into Justin's face. Justin didn't flinch nor looked scared. He just looked directly into dad's eyes, not saying anything. I was scared; my mouth dry, my heart was beating fast. "DAD!" I tried to defend Justin, but he pushed me back again with his arm. Dad looked at me, pissed. I thought he would hit me or Justin at any time now, Max was hiding behind Justin. Dad looked back at Justin again and he let him go. I was relieved and even though Justin didn't look scared at the moment, I heard him give a small sigh of relief too.

"Sit down" dad demanded, pointing to the sofa. Justin fixed his T-shirt and led us to the sofa. "As you three" he said "three" in disgust, "were happily eating ice cream", _we weren't happy_ I thought, _we were just trying to avoid you_, I started to feel angry myself, I was staring to hate him for how he was behaving. "the Sub Station is going broke". The sub station went broke long before today. Dad continued, "you're so selfish you don't even think about the family business, but that's about to change!" he raised his voice, he was moving from one side to another, we followed him with the eyes "you are now working harder, you will come home from school, not a minute late and start working immediately downstairs until closing hours, you understand?" Closing hour was at 10pm, that didn't leave us much time to do anything, not even homework, but I didn't really care about that, I was thinking about all the work we would have to do, but Justin did care and asked about it. "I don't give a damn about your homework" dad yelled back. "You'll do it after you clean up the diner" he added. That meant we would start our school work at 11pm. We weren't sure how that was going to work. I just hated dad even more.

"Theresa!" dad yelled to mom who was still in the kitchen without having a say on the subject, I forgot she was there. "Is dinner ready?!". "Yes, darling!" she said as she started to serve. "Alex, honey will you help me?". I didn't want to help her, she didn't help us yesterday or today, how dare she ask me for help when she didn't do anything to defend her children, but dad made me go help her and I didn't want to make him angrier. As I helped mom, my mind was wondering about everything that happened in the past two days and how things were going to change in the next days, I just didn't understand, I wish I could.

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**A/N: That's chapter 3. I hope you like it! Please read and review!**


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